“Honk, honk!” went the motor horn at the front entrance, which was a signal for breakfast to come to an end and the party to be off.
A hamper of luncheon had been strapped behind the car with the suit cases. Miss Campbell sat between Elinor and Mary in the back, while Nancy took the seat now understood to be hers always, beside her friend Billie, in front. The four Campbell servants, who had grown old in their mistress’s service, stood in a row on the gravel walk to witness the strange sight of their beloved “Miss Helen” sailing away in a red infernal machine, her blue automobile veil streaming out behind like a piece of flying cloud.
“Don’t go too fast, Billie,” she exclaimed, as they turned the corner of Cliff Street, and whirled down the steep, rather slippery Main street of West Haven. “Remember that you have got a decrepit old woman in the back who has never ridden behind anything faster than a pair of ambling carriage horses in all her life.”
“How about the five-thirty express, Cousin Helen?” Billie called over her shoulder.
“A locomotive with an engineer is a very different thing from a young girl guiding a scarlet comet,” the little lady answered; but as they left the street for the country road and Billie gradually increased the speed, Miss Campbell leaned back with a look of blissful enjoyment on her face.
“It is one of the most exhilarating things I have ever experienced,” she confided to Elinor.
At noon they stopped for lunch. The road now lay along a high cliff overlooking the ocean, which on this calm September morning was as serenely blue and still as a mill pond. White sails dotted it here and there, and an occasional wave rippled on the pebbly beach with a murmuring, drowsy sound.
They had pulled up at the side of a little pine grove just off the road and spread the lunch cloth on a carpet of pine needles.
Then the delicious cakes and sandwiches which Miss Campbell had ordered from Mrs. Price were arranged in neat piles, while Elinor opened her tea basket, a present from an aunt in Ireland, and made tea for the company.
It was all very delightful and they were enjoying themselves thoroughly, when Billie and Nancy, who were seated facing the others, received a slight shock. A tall, slender woman, dressed in black, with a long black chiffon veil completely concealing her face, suddenly emerged from behind a clump of dwarf oak and bay trees at the far end of the grove and beckoned to them.